The Eastern Edge

Further to "Out damn glitch," the damn glitch is out and I'm getting notifications and email through this blog again.

Sorry about the ones that got lost and the comments I missed.
Other than that:

Not much on the manga front, the games I've worked on so far I've only scanned and corrected the English with the occasional rewrite/retranslation (in what extrememly little time was given to me), and I've done nothing about translating my Japanese column.

I don't have anything in particular to rant about, either, at least nothing that's vaguely relevant to this site. That gives me very little to write about except;

I have been furiously updating and expanding the Gottsupedia, mostly on aikido and Japanese history related stuff.
Not too many one-stop-shops with aikido info except the Aikido Journal. Stanley Pranin and the Aikido Journal and their Japanese publication "Do" are god sends for people interested in aikido. So many things would have been lost and forgotten, or never even known, if it weren't for Mr. Pranin. The Aikido Journal on-line is a treasure trove of info on aikido, but relatively little on Yoshinkan and even less that is recent. In fairness, aikido is a niche market and it's has to be tough to keep up to date in English.
The current stuff is all in their Japanese magazine - i.e. not in English.

I hope to help do something about that.

Follow up:

Maybe interest in aikido is fading because most of the first and second generation masters are gone and their disiples don't seem as impressive? I don't know, but I think part of the problem is that some people seem to have become aikido media darlings whereas others get largely ignored. worse, when they are gone, there is nothing to do except carry the torch and htere's nothing to talk or write about except rehashing old news and even older stories and myths. You can only do that for so long.
Except for the brief Steven Seagal boom of the early 90's, young martial arts enthusiasts are into MMA and aikido is seem as archaic (I don't agree, but that's other topic altogether).

There are, however, some damn impressive people still around in aikido today that I rarely, if ever, see write ups on in English. They may not have learned from, or even even seen, the founder but they are none the less extremely impressive.

Politics probably plays a large role (and I'm not talking about Aikido Journal here) in what people talk about and don't, or report on or ignore. The aikido world is far from harmonious, despite what the enthusiastic New Age philisopher hippies may be dreaming (if their own dojo is a harmounious happy plae where everyone enjoys training and gets along, that great, though!).

People have personal loyalties, choose sides, and get hardened in their opinions of what "real" aikido is or should be. Martial arts have always been about cliques and when permanent rifts form it has the potential to break schools and organizations apart. It's happened a few times at Aikikai and seen some major people split, and it has happened at the Yoshinkan recently.

Anyway, I'm starting off by concentrating on some of the living legends of aikido that I feel should get some recognition before they too are gone or, even worse, forgotten.

As for other Gottsupedia topics, I've decided to stick to Japanese history. I'll work from there because Japan in general is waaaay to big an subject, and a wiki about manga and games and stuff is boring and has been or is being done by any number of other people.